Until Death Do We Not Part
by Verthril
Summary: With Rogue on her deathbed, Remy heads after the one man who can save her, the man called Logan. Following a breadcrumb trail of postcards, letters, and memories his lady love had shared with him, the trails running cold by the time he goes full circle to the place where it all began, Laughlin City. - Movie/Comics Au Crossover - Romy.
1. Chapter 1

Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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It was just another nameless truck stop standing like a mile marker along the endless asphalt that ran through the big, lonely stretches of a country that had too much geography and not enough history. Never did Remy think he'd make his way on up into Canada, but then again, never did he think he'd have to go looking for the man he was.

Weary from the road and needing more than just gas in his tank, a sign hanging over the door painted the diner as having a sense of humour, _What doesn't kill a man only makes him stronger, bon appetit!_ Needing a laugh just about as much as he did a meal, the joint promised both.

Having a look at the clientele made up of truckers, townies, and loggers, Laughlin City had to have been just about as far as a man could run before he had to start asking himself what it was that kept him on the road, and what it was that saw him wake up in yet another flea bitten motel. Shaking off these kind of thoughts, a flash of yellow was a welcome distraction, a splash of colour that stood out against the flannel and blue collar work shirts that most of the men wore.

Nursing a milkshake all by herself, a girl looking to be no older than thirteen sat dressed in a yellow hoodie, Levis, and the kind of shit kicker boots that had Army Surplus written all over them. Ignored by her as he stole up one of the two empty stools that kept her company, Remy didn't have to wait long for a menu to be tossed down in front of him.

"Coffee or water, hun?" The gal manning the counter had the look of a woman nearing the end of her shift, tired, tuckered out, and having eyes only for the clock.

"Coffee, thank you."

Taking it black with two sugars, the brew was bitter and burnt, but it did the trick alright, warming him up after riding hellbent for leather for more days than he could remember. Late fall in Laughlin City might as well have been winter for Upstate New York, but for this N'Awlin's boy, Hell itself could have frozen over and it'd be something a might bit warmer.

The menu didn't have much in the way of choice, figuring the house burger and fries sat at the top of it for a reason, but looking a little further down, the beef and broccoli stir fry served up with fried rice sounded like something that would take a while to see whipped up. In joints like these, the short order cook was more used to slinging bacon, home fries, and eggs that came done in one of two ways only, sunny side up or scrambled.

Leaving his order with the lady minding the clock just about as much as she minded the counter, Remy spun about on his stool to get down to a little people watching. The funny thing was, he didn't seem to be the nights attraction, so that had him steal a peek down at the girl pointedly ignoring him just about as much as she had been doing so for everyone else.

"You be just passing through?" If he thought she'd been giving him the cold shoulder before, Remy could damn near see his breath now, and it had nothing to do with the late fall outside that promised a real taste of a Canadian winter.

The odd chuckle and quiet laughter said that better had tried, and now Remy really found himself interested with this little girl looking so lost against so many work weary and road tired men. Tossing down a crumpled bill and the kind of pocket change that had lint mixed in with it, the girl spun about on her stool to hop down with a stomp of her shit kickers. Strolling up and on out the doors without a look back, she left, leaving him finding himself on the wrong end of an empty stool.

"Order up!"

No sooner than could the waitress take a stroll down the counter, then did Remy find a plate of the worst beef and broccoli he'd ever seen in his life. There was a new chuckle to be heard amongst the quiet laughter, and for the second time that night Remy found himself the straight man setting up for the punch line, and a look at the plate said the joke was on him. But hungry he was, hungry like he never wanted to be reminded of again.

"Merci." Remy whispered, thankful for the meal.

Three bites in and he could stomach it, while five had him knowing he'd be able to clear his plate, but by twelve, well, just maybe he'd order up the same on his way back through. Settling his bill with a tip made of the kind of change that didn't see any pocket lint in it, Remy headed on back out to the cold, lonely road. The only company he had now was his Indian Motorcycle, two photos, and a list that was running pretty damn short.

Scratching off the diner, there was just one more stop in Laughlin City before a man had to figure on either heading on up to the Yukon or turning tail, and he wasn't a man who could turn tail. Not when the love of his life, his Rogue, was laid up in a bad way back in Westchester, and the only thing that could help her was a kiss from another man.

"Logan, I be running out of both patience and places to look. Olly, Olly, Oxen Free, homme, there be a lady we both care about who need to see you."

Tearing off on up the road with a full tank and a full belly, there was only one place left in Laughlin City to look for Logan, the place Rogue first remembered meeting the man. The only thing waiting for him past the town limits would be the kind of regret to keep him up late at night, the kind of regret that came with letting down the lady he loved. Because if he couldn't find Logan then Rogue was as good as dead, and if she died, then he might as well join her for all his live would be worth living without her.

But damn if he hadn't gone and jinx himself. The screech of brakes and the skid of tires burning rubber as they vainly dug and clutched at asphalt for purchase becoming the last things he heard before the dark night came to claim him. Beaten, broken, and lying limp in the fall leaves, Remy stared up into the night sky that sparkled and shone with the waning ribbons of the Northern Lights.

He was hurt bad, bad enough that even breathing was a real bitch of a chore, so it was a funny thought to think how much he wanted a smoke. Try as he might to will his hand to reach for his pack of smokes, it lay useless without so much as a twitch of his pickpocket's deft fingers. Trying again for his wallet, all he wanted was to see his Rogue one last time, to see her smiling face and hope she would forgive him for failing her.

"Chere, Remy...he be sorry, but I tried. It just wasn't in the cards, neh? Maybe Death, he be a gambling man just like they say? He and I, we play us a little blackjack? Merde..."

Taking comfort in one little fact, at least was about to die having tried, just like he had said he would. Funny that, how some bullshit bravado meant to cheer up his lady had come around to bite him in the ass. Surrendering to his heavy, leaden lidded eyes that refused to open once more, the light tread of feet through the fall leaves was a hope he didn't think he had the heart for anymore.

But try as he might, he couldn't even find the breath to beg for his life. Yet for his Rogue, the lady who had turned him from his crooked ways, he mutely pled for hers.

 _Save me...merde, save me so I can find him to save her..._

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There was big game out in _these here woods_ , Logan had taught her that much already. He'd taught her a lot in the time since they'd first met, just like how her being hungry didn't mean she had to go and kill for a meal. Deer, Moose, and Elk had plenty enough blood to fill her belly and still see them on their way, albeit on shaky legs.

Looking for dinner after her snack, Jubilee sucked at the straw to seek out the last dregs of her chocolate milkshake. Undeath wouldn't have been worth living if she couldn't get her sugar kick on, and god damned if everything didn't taste better dead. Then came the skidding of tires, the stink of burnt rubber, and the unmistakable scent of wasted blood getting drunk deep and slow by the greedy dirt.

Carrion wasn't something her and her kind could stomach, dead blood was bad juju, but fresh road kill could be an act of mercy if the poor beast was suffering. Rushing through the woods with a speed that rivalled the wind, off in the distance she heard her pack calling to each other, the wolves that had welcomed her in as one of their own, just as they had done for Logan before her.

Leaping out of the brush to land on the asphalt hard, diesel exhaust lingered, but beneath that was a scent of cigarettes she knew from somewhere. "Fucking hit and run..."

This far out in the middle of nowhere, it was only a crime if ya got caught, or so Logan muttered every time a logging truck nearly sent them off the road. But that didn't make it right. Following after the scent of cigarettes, leather, and the tinkling of a cooling muffler, Jubilee found her road kill and lost her appetite all at once. It was the dude from the diner, the guy who had gone and sat next to her, looking a lot paler than she remembered.

"Dude...?" she asked quietly, dreading his reply somewhere deep in her hungry gut.

He was alive, if just barely, but he wasn't going to be for much longer. It wasn't the blood loss that told her this, nor just how fucking pale he was, no, it was how drawn out every beat of his heart got. Beating hearts were just background noise in a crowd, kinda like the mess of too many voices drowning out each other, but here alone with him? His heart was a deafening crash of thunder that startled her with its every laboured hammer fall.

Skirting the growing stain that pooled around him, she sucked a breath heady with blood that smelt of summer barbeques, street meat, and called to her with the song of the ice cream truck rolling down the street. Biting at her bottom lip until the pain of her petite fangs let her step back from the edge, she searched and rummaged through the dying dude's pockets for his wallet.

"Remy, huh? Cool name...but damn if you aren't a fucking long way from home. Small world, me too."

A dude from Louisiana had just about as much reason for being in the ass end of Alberta as a girl from sunny Southern Cali, so he probably had his reasons, just like her. Pocketing cash out of habit, she didn't even bother counting it. Flipping through a couple of business cards, she snagged them too, mostly because they had numbers written on the back that might be someone who cared enough about the guy to want to know the awful truth of his imminent demise.

Finding a couple of photos tucked away in one little corner of the wallet, the first of a pretty smoking hot chick who had signed the back with a little scribbled heart and her name, Rogue, it was the second one that had her jerk back away from the dying dude.

It was Logan, her Logan! Except he looked happy, well...mostly grumpy, but even she could catch the hint of a smile as he sat with a girl that looked a lot like smoking hottie Rogue, 'cept she looked like way younger, maybe just sixteen or so.

"Dude...?" Out of habit she held her breath until she heard his heart beat weakly once more.

His was a struggle with dry lips that didn't want to part and the search for breath enough for his dying words. Watching from her crouched perch upon a fallen log that let her stay away and above from the blood damp earth, Jubilee waited out whatever it was he wanted to say.

"Remy dude?"

"Save me...merde, save me so I can find him to save her..."

If her ears hadn't been so sharp as they were, she swore she wouldn't have even heard him. But the fact was she had, and now she had her own questions crying to be answers against the weak waning rise and fall of his chest as he died. It was over for him, all his secrets taken to the grave aside from the affects he left behind for her to puzzle over.

Holding the two photos in hand, it was the one that showed a girl become a woman that drew her sad eyes. Tears of blood threatened to be loosed as she looked at this Rogue, and the man who had gone to the ends of the earth to find a man who he thought could save her, but from what? Only Remy knew...

"Fuck it. The dead can't go bitching about what happens to them after the fact, cuz you already had your chance. So, if you don't like this second one I'm giving ya, then I'll gank you myself...right after you tell me how you know Logan!"

Reaching for a pocket knife out of pure reflex, the kind that had once kept her safe out on the streets when she'd been just another runaway, she flicked open the blade to catch the light of the stars above. Cutting her wrist deep and long, the blood that was her curse dribbled and fell over the pale lips of her Louisiana boy. All she had to go one was lore and superstition, that and the vague and hazy memories of the moment she'd been made a pawn in games way bigger than her.

Tonight she was gonna make a new one of her kind, a Vampire, because if there was one thing she fucking knew, it was that ghosts where real. And god dammit if the world didn't need another emo fucking ghost getting his poltergeist on...

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	2. Chapter 2

Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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Fire scorched his throat and smoldered somewhere deep down in his gut, burning stronger than a belt of the strongest whiskey. Despite it all, Remy found himself with an unquenchable hunger for it the likes he hadn't known since he'd been a starving gutter rat scavenging for scraps in the back alleys of New Orleans.

"Get off of me!"

Searching for the voice, Remy struggled past the hunger that gnawed at his belly, that hunger he never wanted to know again. He was starving, ravenous for whatever it was that wet his lips and tasted so sweet as it ran across his tongue.

"I said...!"

For however distant that painful memory was, the memory of very really starving to death, there was another more recent one that assaulted him suddenly, a memory of being flung clean from his bike. His back again screamed at him in pain just as it had in that memory, the crisp crack of timber falling joining own harsh, pitiful cry. Tumbling, his hands clawed and scrabbled at the litter of leaves that covered the forest floor. Diseased deja vu plagued him, a fever dream filled with the stench of burnt rubber and the screech of tires skidding over pavement.

"...get off of me!"

The voice was little more than an echo now, sounding so quiet after the thunderous crash of a fallen tree. Struggling to find his footing, another voice fought to be heard, and how unsettling it was how much like his own it sounded. Having not the ears for it, this familiar voice was drowned out by his thirst.

"Whoa, is that what I look like when I get the mean kind of hangry? No wonder Logan's always joking about staking me if I don't simmer down, at least he better be joking..."

Opening his eyes to the night, his Devil Eyes, Remy searched for the voice that taunted him. Tempting nectar hung in the air, a scent so sweet it stole his stomach in the vise tight grip of insatiable, greedy need. Taking a step forward into the dark forest, a feral growl brought him short, made all the more fearsome as he realized it rumbled and rolled from his own chest. _Merde_...

"That's it, Remy dude. Just one step at a time."

Fighting past the hunger that robbed him of reason, he searched the silent standing trees that loomed over him in complete indifference. The crack of a branch drew his attention, finding only falling leaves and a tumble of snow to hint that he wasn't hearing voices, and nor was he alone. His eyes weren't fast enough to follow her passage, his maddening pixie that called to him from beyond the corner of his eye, but even that was a lie. It wasn't that his eyes weren't fast enough, no, he just wasn't focussed enough.

"How do you know Logan?!" The first and most important question tumbled past his lips.

A flash of yellow had him turn to find another empty branch rocking amongst the empty boughs of a tree, above which the aloof stars danced completely indifferent to him.

"Pretty, ain't they? I didn't know there were that many stars out there until I came up here..."

Closer now came this teasing voice that danced through the treetops, so close that he was sure she had to be just up there somewhere over his shoulder. Yet all he could do was stand there and stare up at the innumerable stars above, remembering a night with his Mississippi girl where she tried and failed to find the words to describe such a sky. He'd teased her then, Rogue, telling her he'd seen plenty enough stars out there in his wanderings.

But standing there under that same sky she had stared up at, imagining her awestruck and silent, she'd been right all along. _Ya won't go believing me 'till ya see it for yourself, huh?_ Haunted by that memory of a night of stargazing from the rooftop of Xavier's, it brought with it her smile, her laughter, a reminder of why he'd come on up to Canada in the first place.

"I was dying..." Turning his red on black eyes away from the heavens, he found her at last, his secretive pixie.

Sitting up there on a branch, her shit kickers dangling loosely as she clicked her heels together with anxious energy, the girl from the diner sat looking down on him with eyes of a burning crimson so like his own. Pale as freshly fallen snow, he was sure she would have been dazzling in the blue light of a full moon.

"...you were." A quiet and hesitant admission that shied away from a lie if he'd ever heard it.

 _Save me_ , those had been his dying words. _Save me so I can find him_ , Logan, the man who could save Rogue. A liar, a cheat, and a thief, she made him want to be a better man. To see her smile was enough to give up all his wicked ways and go straight. But his Rogue was a woman who lived up to her namesake, having in her a rebellious streak that tempted he misbehave. _A man shouldn't be so lucky to be twice blessed_...

Running a hand through his tussled and tangled hair, it came back stained in blood that had to be his own, as cold as a night sweat roused from a terrible dream. Searching, he couldn't find a single cut, a bruise, nor any ache to tell him where all the blood had come from.

Turning back to her, this tiny girl sitting up in a treat like a nymph, try as he might to look her straight in the eye, her gaze fled to the safety of the frosted leaf litter below.

"You did, sorta...it's complicated," she admitted.

"Complicated how?" Skirting the truth was something he knew like the back of his hand, and she sure enough looked like a girl trying to find the right way to fess up.

"Uh, like, how do you know Logan anyway?"

"He be a friend of a friend..." As close to the truth as he needed to admit at the moment.

"This friend of his, she different too? Different like Logan?" Her luminous crimson eyes looked down on him in anticipation of his answer.

"I never say that friend be a lady, did I?"

Answering her question with a question, he waited, only to have her surprise him once more. Digging into her hoodie, she pulled out his wallet, and damn if the thief in him couldn't respect her for it. A picture he held dear was pulled out, his favourite of Rogue, and another that was dear to her too, a picture of that grumpy Canuck she had stories to tell of. Flashed for him to see before being tucked right back where they belonged, she tossed it down to him.

"Catch." And with that, the space between them shrunk by the few steps forward it took to do just that.

A casual riffle though it found most everything where it should be, his credit cards included, just a little light of close to the fifty bucks cash he had on him after leaving the diner. Remembering the lint strewn change this mystery girl of his had paid her bill with, he let it go, thinking she could use it more than him. With a sigh that spoke to his need for a smoke, he looked up at her again, ready to see just what kind of good faith that bought him.

"You saved me, how? You different? Different like Logan?" _A mutant? One that could heal?_

Without another word she dropped from her perch to land in a crouch, bouncing up with a spring in her step that carried her forward. Just as tiny and petite as she had looked in the tree, he was sure she couldn't have been an inch over five feet, if even that. Looking down on her as she stood there staring back up at him, her sweet and innocent smile was that of a cat to a mouse, and in that moment he didn't know just which he was...

"P'tite?" As good a name as any for her until she told him it, "You don't got to be scared of ol' Remy here, I be not a man who will hurt..." ... _you_ , the breath for even that was stolen from him with a fierce punch he hadn't even seen coming.

Again the thunder of a fell tree crashed, the splintering crack of timber falling to the forest floor echoing through the night. The pain awoke something in him, kindling to the burning hunger he remembered and feared from what felt like a lifetime ago. Spotting her just where he'd been but a second before, the space of inches between them had become yards as he climbed to his feet, stalking towards her with the thought of a good spanking running through his mind. Yet in the blink of an eye she was gone...

"Gotta be faster than that," her voice came, taunting and playful.

Jerking his head up, he felt like he was underwater, his limbs fighting against the unseen and oppressive pressure of the dark, unexplored depths. Above him she hovered, his petite kitten who had found herself a mouse in him, twisting as free and graceful as a bird. He saw the kick coming, helpless against it as he stood as good as frozen, his muscles answering him in the slow and sluggish reply of glaciers.

Forced to marvel at her form as she cartwheeled through the air, he was a nail to be hammered as she brought her foot down squarely on his head, jarring his every bone in his body that they rang with impact. The ground exploded beneath him. Faster he was on his feet this time, searching for her and wondering where she'd appear next. And all through this, some thought tugged for attention and begged to be heard. _This is wrong_...

The damage was there to see in the forest, the shattered trunk of the fallen tree, and most recently the heaved and cracked earthen crater he stood in. And for the second time that night he searched for a single cut, the tenderness of a bruise, or even a broken bone, only to find smooth skin and hard muscle beneath his ripped and torn clothes.

"Sorry," shyly she whispered, peeking out from behind a tree as if playing a game of hide and seek, "It's something ya kinda gotta see to believe, or...ya know, feel as the case may be."

"You changed me?" And into what he didn't know, that thought alone filling his heart with a tremor of fear.

But even that felt wrong, wondering where the skipped beat was as he ran a hand against his breast to search for it, finding to his horror how still and silent his heart really had fallen. Not even his chest heaved with the exertion he expected after that beating he'd been on the wrong end of, nor did his breath fog in the cold night.

"Do you believe in monsters," she asked, meek and quiet as she hid behind the tall trunk of a tree.

Any other night and she would have looked like a scared child fearful of what lurked under her bed, and yet there was something unnatural about her. It was in her sheepish smile that he saw something he hadn't noticed before, petite fangs peeking out past her pearly whites that so tenderly bit her bottom lip in a nervous grip.

If his heart hadn't already stopped, it surely would have then, because yes...he did believe in monsters. A _N'awlins_ boy borne, bred, and raised, his tante had stories for him about all the things most everyone else swore wasn't real just so they could sleep at night.

"My Tante Mattie always had some stories to tell me, and my tante be not the kind of lady to lie." The first few steps were the worst, the crumbling and yielding earth falling out from beneath his feet as he climbed.

He'd been ready to make a deal with the Devil himself, back when he'd been lying there in the blood damp earth of what he thought was going to be his shallow grave, buried in time by the coming snow of a Canadian winter. Standing over her now, his P'tite, she was his tiny Angel of Death come to save his soul. A tear fell from her luminous crimson eyes, running red against her ivory cheeks as she looked up at him in a silent apology he felt he didn't deserve.

Catching it on his finger, he lapped at it, and sure enough it tasted of the sweet nectar he had so gluttonously drank.

"A vampire, oui? The Devil himself wouldn't have been so kind, and he take more than just the cash I have on me, no?"

To hear her hiccup and laugh soothed away the phantom pain of his still and quiet heart, paying that kindness forward with a hug he thought she needed just then.

"I'll take you to Logan, but we gotta stop for a bite first. I don't know about you, but I'm starving, and you don't wanna see me hangry. Oh, and I hope you don't mind hunting for your dinner, because I'm a vegetarian Vampire. I don't eat nothing with a face, blood bank Capri-sun style snack packs excluded..."

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"Okay, like...I know it's an acquired taste and all, but trust me, deer is good eating. You're seriously not gonna make me get all Momma Bird, are you?"

Remy's disgust was worth a laugh to see, he was way picturing her feeding him some ABC worm with him playing the part of a baby bird. Again he tried, his fangs sharp and deadly in the dim light of the aurora lit sky, and again he jerked back from the bleating doe. Sighing as dramatically as any teen her own age, the thirteen years she looked anyways, Jubilee drank again from the doe and felt for the beating of the poor beast's heart even as she desperately avoided the terror in its eyes.

That was a trick that took some practice to learn, coming to know the limits of how deep she could drink without killing her prey. Not that the deer wouldn't be an easy hunt for an opportunistic predator, blood loss did that, but a fighting chance was better than being carrion.

"C'mere," Offering Remy her slender and thin wrist, he stood apart from her looking completely clueless to her intentions, "You seriously didn't think we were gonna swap spit, did you? I mean, yeah, you're hot. But that would just be weird seeing how we just met and all."

"P'tite?"

"God, do I got to spell it out for you? Am I really gonna have to cut myself again? You got fangs for a reason, now drink. Just don't make me..." ... _thump ya this time_.

Remy stole her breath as he fell on her, his deadly kiss on her wrist so sinfully seductive that she could forgive him for being greedy. Taken into his gentle arms, he held her close as he supped. Never had she ever before been on this end of the embrace, always the huntress, never the prey. She'd been too scared to even notice how good it felt when she'd turned him, a moment of panic fuelling a kick that sent him tumbling through a tree.

And just like that it was over, turning her heavily lidded eyes up at him in an unspoken question, begging to ask why he stopped only to see him play the part of a gentleman of old. A kiss to her wrist washed away the telling mark, two pin pricks ripe with her blood, the hallmark of Hollywood vampire attacks for generations.

"Merci," he whispered.

Her knees weak and her voice an incomprehensible mewling of want, Jubilee stumbled away from him, suddenly jealous of that girl...that woman of who he carried pictures of in his wallet.

"P'tite?"

To hear him call to her in that pet name he'd picked, she snatched the tiger by the tail and twisted that jealousy into something else, something good. She wouldn't have to be the one to call whoever that girl...that lady was, and tell her that he'd died. A lucky photo had saved his life...

"I'm good, just...whoa. Give me some space, okay?"

Alone in the night with just him, every fibre of her being screamed to surrender to his kiss, the moments pain his fangs brought one that came with a promise of unimaginable pleasure. To feel his lips again at her pale flesh, to feel herself made small against his lithe yet muscular frame, it was a need that rivalled her damned and cursed hunger.

"Are we ready to find Logan?"

Logan, her buddy, her pal. Her tempting visions of Remy twisted and turned to into him, remembering all the times that Logan had let her sup at his wrist just as she had let Remy. It was the cold shower she needed, complete with the icky echoes of his annoyed hisses and angry grunts as she fed, and none of them as sweet as the kiss Remy had placed upon her wrist. Shivering, her dinner date was well and done now.

"Yeah, c'mon. This time of night he should be done with the cage fights. Your friend of his, she told you about them, right? I'm just asking, cuz he's usually looking to wind down after them. Sometimes he gets lucky, other times...well, other times someone's stupid enough to look for a rematch." And there was no way in hell she wanted to be around for the either of them.

With eyes that looked back in time, Remy stood there lost to a thought, and it was the kind of thought she figured she knew the jist of. This friend of Logan's must have gone and told a few stories of him, the kind seen through rose-tinted glasses.

"Well, alright then. I'll take you to Logan, but you can have fun dealing with him. Word to the wise, cross your fingers that he's found himself some company of the bar slut variety, cuz he'll kick your ass otherwise. Just saying..."

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	3. Chapter 3

Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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Jumping on out of a rig that was hauling heavy machinery bound north, Remy turned to look for Jubilee only to see a figment of a story made real, that of how a girl from Mississippi had ended up in a part of Alberta where she had no business being. Stumbling back a step, his cold, dead heart hurt to imagine the lady he loved, then just a girl herself, hitching rides for Alaska on empty pockets, and an even emptier belly.

Sucking a breath of exhaust that stunk of diesel, he looked for the bar as she must have back then, finding something that didn't much match the picture she'd painted for him.

"What?" asked Jubilee as she stepped up beside him, her boots crushing the gravel beneath them.

"Nothing, it just not be what I expected."

Pinching her lips in a puzzled moue, Jubilee stared at the bar in a squint as if she were trying to see it through his eyes. Giving up with a dismissive shrug, she followed after the driver that had been so kind as to offer them a ride. She was right about that too, Jubilee, being that it wasn't gonna be that hard to find a ride to the bar, not with it being the last stop on the way out of town. Especially not when there was a whole mess of empty highway standing between someone and their destination.

Catching up to her with a few easy strides of his long legs, her curious crimson eyes peeked up at him from beneath her hoodie. She had something on her mind, whether a question or something else he didn't know, but the cat sure had her tongue, so he prodded her in kind, "What?"

"Nothing," Jubilee parroted, "You're just taking this a whole heck of a lot better than I figured you would. I guess having a friend of Logan's as a friend of yours means you're used to some weird in your life..."

Another dismissive shrug, and that was that as Jubilee skipped ahead to lead the way. The bar was still the better part of the gravel parking lot away, a lot filled with logging trucks, big rigs, and just about everything a man could imagine in between. Acting on an sudden urge, he pulled out his phone to snap a picture, knowing deep down in his gut that Rogue would want to see what had become of the joint where her life had changed.

A glance saw everything perfect, from the neon that littered the built up four bay garage, the signage advertising beers meant to wet one's whistle, and to the girl caught staring back at him looking so out of place herself as she stood there in the foreground. By the time he looked back, though, Jubilee was just a flash of yellow vanishing past the door.

Feeling a tickle of Deja Vu, something his Tantie always told him meant he was standing at a crossroad, but that was a road he'd crossed a long way back. In his gut he knew what lay on the other side of that door, a broken man running from the pain of letting down the lady he loved.

"Olly, Olly, Oxen Free, homme. You been running long enough, it be time you go home."

Putting one foot in front of the other, the long road he'd taken was running short, and he was mighty ready to turn tail and go home himself. Even if that meant dragging Logan back with him, punching, kicking, and clawing all the way.

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Sucking down a beer before his next fight, usually by this time o' the night he would have been done, usually. Tonight was different in that there was a crew of men bound for parts unknown, men that made a living by breaking their backs with all of a cup of coffee and hard tack in their belly before the dawn even had the dignity to break.

Beer, whiskey, and women were all going to be in short supply, aside from the kind of gals who a fella trifled with at his own peril, the hard working women who weren't none afraid of showing up the boys. He'd met women like that, ladies who held a special place in his heart, women better off being as far from him as he was from decent folk. Staring up the next son of a bitch looking to try his luck at the title, Logan got to his feet.

"The Wolverine!" So the announcer reminded the crowd, much to their adoration.

The bar he knew, the cage he'd fought in, and all the blood he'd spilt were all long gone, just dust and ash after a fire had claimed it all. The only thing to make it out of the fire that had taken down the original joint was his legend, a legend that marked him as the meanest son of a bitch to ever fight in the Cage. These days folk knew what he was, the beating he could dish out, and the beating he could take. It got him paid, and got him laid, so he couldn't give two squirts of piss either way.

"Ya heard the only rule that matters?"

He was only asking for the poor kid's sake, just like he had for all the rest who had climbed on in to prove how big their balls were. Like all the rest, this fella just went and gave a stiff and stern nod. And like all of them before, it'd be his funeral if he couldn't listen to sound advice, cuz kicking the Wolverine in his nuts was a good way to piss him off, all bets are off after that.

The bell rang to call for blood, and blood it would have.

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The joint was packed, the crowd filled with an energy that would have last call as far off as the coming dawn. Try and cut them off and there would be a riot, better for the bartender to just take the cash and pass off shots, beer, and the bottles of spirits to keep the party going.

Sitting safe at the edge of the crowd, right up there on the bar top so she could see the fight, Jubilee nursed her beer with a slow appreciation. Kicking her heels, in some dark corner of her eye she saw Remy stalking the crowd, stopped time and again by another pretty lady looking for some company. Each time he shot them down with a silver-tongued promise he was out to break, his heart already belonging to the hottie whose pictures he kept safe in his wallet.

Keeping Remy in a watchful corner of her eye, she looked back to the cage in time to see Logan thrown up against the steel mesh, his every pained grunt and hard breath ringing loudly in her ear. His skin slick with sweat, Logan looked to have finally met a challenger to put up a good fight for the title. With cash getting thrown down for last minute bets, right along with the promises of who would be paying for the next round, she watched Logan surge forward with a savage roar that was answered by the crowd.

Blood hung in the air with every punch, sprayed and spattered with a snort from a busted nose. The crowd might scream for blood, but she hungered for it, watching transfixed with her teeth clenched tight at the lip of her bottle of beer. Rolling her tongue against the cold glass, her long and slow sip tasted wrong against what she wanted, what she needed.

"P'tite?"

And just like that, the crowd separated her from the fight, the blurring of time and distance coming into crystal focus. When Remy had taken a stool next to her, she didn't know, a slip that brought with it an embarrassed blush to her cheeks. Pounding back the last of her beer, she raised her empty bottle and flashed two fingers to call for the next round, one for her and her new friend. Peeking at Remy from on high, she found him staring up at her in surprise.

"What? I'm eighteen, heck...I'm almost nineteen! That's legal here."

Scooting off the bar for a seat on the stool she'd been using as a foot rest, she turned her back to the crowd, to the cage, and to the call for blood that had so many hearts running hard and fast. Sucking a calming breath born from habits that died hard, a fresh beer was a welcome distraction, one that came with some quiet conversation.

"How old...?" asked Remy, considering his next words carefully with a swig of his own beer.

"Hard to believe, huh? Almost nineteen, and here I still look thirteen." Rewarded with a nod, a thoughtful one, the crowd filled up the uncomfortable quiet that had fallen between them.

"Merde, I must have needed this. Never have a beer taste this good before," croaked Remy at last, chased with a weary and brisk burst of laughter.

"That's one of the perks, everything tastes better. Which totally helps take the edge off, too. So don't be afraid to go for the top shelf stuff. Trust me on that, I'm an import only girl now, unless I get my hands on a good craft brew. Otherwise it's fuck domestic, bitches!"

Her own laughter had it some good company with his, an impish smile coaxing from him a sly smirk that saw them sharing a long overdue toast. Seeing one round turn into the second, all on Logan's tab, she found the courage for a question of her own, "So, who's the hottie?"

"Rogue," whispered Remy.

"She in trouble? I mean, you were all about finding Logan to save her when I found you..." ... _when I turned you._

"She is sick in a bad way. Henry, our Doctor friend, he gives her weeks at best when I last call him. But don worry, P'tite, it only be this morning when I make that call."

Losing any and all appetite for her beer, she looked up at him with her crimson eyes brimming with unnatural tears. And as one spilt, he leaned in to gently kiss her cheek, chaste and innocent...or it would have been if not for how he licked his lips in parting. Blinking away those telling tears, a glance towards the cage had her think again of that picture which had started all this, the one of a younger Rogue happily posing with the man who tied them all together, her grumpy Wolvie dude.

"Okay, I'll bite. How's Wolvie supposed to help her? Gonna get him sick and hope the Doc can get all Hollywood, ya know, cure what she's got with antibodies or something?"

Suffering his sweet, sincere smile as he looked down on her, Jubilee found herself with a hankering for something other than beer. Adding a glass of Johnny Walker to the tab, Logan had only himself to blame for introducing her to Scotch, and just about every hard liquor she liked.

"You be right when you ask if she be different like Logan, and she is. Rogue, she can borrow what make a man like Logan heal, all it take is a touch, or maybe just a kiss. Like Sleeping Beauty, neh? He get to be her prince..."

"Oh, well..." Jubilee sputtered, her eyes darting to and fro from her glass to Remy in a rare bit of nervousness, "Something tells me Logan will be up for some hand holding, especially if he's known her since she was what? Fifteen, sixteen?"

Wondering just how many birthdays it had been, since that girl standing with Logan had grown into the woman Remy was out to save, a collective gasp from the crowd told that Wolvie's fight was just about over. "Ouch, even I heard that. Dumb dude Wolvie's fighting totally musta went for a head butt, close quarter like."

"The Winner, and reigning champion...the Wolverine!"

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The fatigue of a night of fighting dogged him, even if he didn't have a bruise to show for all the blows he'd taken, because he sure as fuck felt the each and every one of them. Feeling the hungry eyes of his admirers in passing, there would be time enough to pick the lucky lady who got to go back with him so he could lick his wounds, as all he had the mind for at the moment was a beer and whatever the kitchen help had whipped up to fill the ache of an empty belly.

"Beer," Logan grunted, hitting the bar hard.

Now and again a man came along to put up a fight, and damn if that last fella didn't have him wondering if they weren't so unalike, just another mutant out to keep his head down somewhere far from civilization. Not that he was hiding what he was, _let 'em come_...

Pounding back his first without even tasting it, a second waited with a shot of whiskey meant to sooth away the ache of sore muscles.

"Pipsqueak's got herself a friend tonight," the gal tending bar mentioned, "She's been racking herself up a few rounds with him, too, but ya didn't hear that from me."

Leaning in a little further, he saw her alright, his lil Darlin' sitting a good ten stools down with a fella who didn't look like he had any right to be keeping her company. Rolling the stiffness out of his neck with a satisfying crack, it was rare enough to see Jubilee in there, let alone talking to someone. Most nights she'd be running with her _Puppies_ , the wolf pack he'd gone and introduced her to.

Like most folk, the only time she came to the bar was when she was looking for a drink, of one kind or another. And as tuckered out as he was, the last thing he wanted to do was go and play blood bank for the lil lady, so seeing her nursing a Heineken didn't phase him nothing. No, it was the fella holding her hand that he had issue with, "Thanks."

Snagging a pint for a stroll down those ten stools, the closer got the emptier they were. That was something that had nothing to do with his reputation either, or hers for that matter. No, that was the gussied up tool making ape remembering there were things out there in the dark that were worth being afraid of, and it didn't hurt any less every time he saw it.

"You gonna introduce me?"

Ignored for the time it took for her to find the courage at the bottom of her glass, he didn't need to see her stained cheeks to know she'd been crying, not when she cried blood. It hung in the air and clung to her, to her and her dandy fella who had the good grace to keep his trap shut. Even if he looked like he'd just gone and seen himself a ghost...

"Uh? Ya know what, Wolvie dude, aren't you supposed to be wheeling some broad in the back of your camper right about now? And by wheeling, I mean fucking." She might as well have said she was upset for all the gutter trash that came spilling out of her mouth.

"Excuse me if I got interrupted after hearin' you've been racking up a bill on my tab with a fella yer fine holding hands with." Not his best comeback to the smart mouth the kid had, but the truth could be messy.

Now, there was no faking that she'd only just notice that herself, especially with the way she jerked her hand back as if she'd just been shocked. But that didn't change the fact of what had been happening while he'd been on in the cage. Like any girl the thirteen years she looked, Jubilee rolled her eyes and let go of a long and suffering breath, only to go and glare up at him with murder in her eyes.

"Logan, meet Remy. Remy, Logan. There, I introduced you two, just like ya both wanted me to! Now if you'll both excuse me, Ima gonna go and get me some air so you guys can whip out your dicks and find out whose is bigger!"

Any other night and he'd have had his wrist at her throat, right up until the pain bled away to a pleasure he didn't rightly appreciate. The thing was this wasn't any other night, not with how the stench of a predator stayed strong and truth even with the distance his lil lady went and put between him and her. With a look to the fella she'd been keeping company, that meant one of two things, and this far into the middle of nowhere meant the odds of meeting another fang were damned slim to none.

"For fucks sake, I'm gonna need a drink for this, ain't I?"

"You and me both, homme..."

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Had they been in the cage, there would be a new king, all thanks to the two photos he pulled out of his wallet. Sitting there at the bar with the Big Bad Wolverine himself, Remy let the man have all the time he needed. Swallowing down a shot Jack Daniel's, the lady behind the bar had been kind enough to leave the bottle without his asking, something he'd have to tip her for.

"I promise her I find you, and she make me promise that I tell you this. She didn't do it for no boy."

Try as he might to lie to himself, Remy was surprised to see Logan silently shed a tear at these words. Pouring himself another shot, he passed the bottle down, sharing in that moment the second toast he'd had that night.

"She's, she's not," Logan croaked, his voice a harsh whisper, "Is she?"

"Rogue is sick, the only good news be that the cure not stick." Not that he'd known that back when they'd met, or that she'd even taken the cure for that matter, that had been her secret.

Seeing Logan's shoulders sag under the weight of a guilty conscience, he couldn't begrudge the man that. He'd been prepared for worse this whole time, every minute of every hour of every day being a moment he dreaded getting a call from Henry, one that would tell him he was too late.

"...and I bet you had plenty of other stones to go turning over before ya found this one?" Slugging back another belt, Logan stared down at that photo of him and the gal on his arm.

"The last should have been the first? Even Rogue say she not remember how she got here, not when she was just a girl hitching a ride for Alaska. The story she tell, its not like there anything for you to come back to here anyway, no?" _Just a cage meant for a wild animal_.

"I had my reasons."

Feeling the eyes of the other man looking straight through him, Remy didn't even need turn his head to know that Logan was looking on out the door that Jubilee had once again vanished behind. Hearing a heavy sigh, though, had in it the end of a promise to be kept, one to be sworn with a drink amongst men.

"Westchester?" Logan asked, raising up Jubilee's forgotten tumbler now freshened with a finger of Jack Daniel's.

"Oui, Westchester." Remy replied with his own shot full of Tennessee whiskey running wet down the glass.

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End file.
